Track Listing:
1. If Love Were All
2. One More (Baby Be Good To Me)
3. Why
4. It's Not Unusual
5. The Sally Gardens
6. Love Is The Sweetest Thing
7. Whole (It Isn't Like Me)
8. Care Of Cell 44
9. Try A Little Tenderness
10. Chasing Cars
11. Sing It Back
12. He Was Beautiful
13. A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square
14. We'll Gather Lilacs
It's very hard to know where to start with this CD other than to say that I like it very much indeed. This isn't straight "jazz" as you may know it as Clare has taken different types of songs from different eras and given them a new twist.
We start off with a Noel Coward composition from 1929 called "If Love Were All" but are then brought right bang up to date with a brand new song called " One More (Baby Be Good To Me)" which Clare has co-written with Grant Windsor and Amanda Field. We get a haunting reworking of Annie Lennox's "Why", a great latin beat version of the Tom Jones classic "It's Not Unusual" and then the oldest song on the album - WB Yeats' 1889 poem "Down to the Sally Gardens" which was set to music by Herbert Hughes in 1909.
Mainstream jazz fans will be pleased with Clare's version of Ray Noble's 1932 hit "Love Is The Sweetest Thing" and we also have Harry Woods' "Try A Little Tenderness" from 1932, Ivor Novello's "We'll Gather Lilacs" from 1945 and a smooth relaxed version of that charming wartime foxtrot "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square".
Another brand new Clare Teal composition "Whole (It Isn't Like Me)" is complemented by excellent reworks of the Moloko 1999 dance hit "Sing It back" and Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars" and I have to say that there isn't a track on this CD that I would skip past. I'd never heard Rod Argent's prison song "Care of Cell 44" before and although the dreamy slow waltz "He Was Beautiful" - based on the classical tune "Cavatina" - has been previously recorded by, among others, Cleo Laine, Iris Williams and Paul Potts, with instrumental versions made famous by both The Shadows and John Williams (in the film The Deerhunter), Clare's version has a pleasing freshness to it.
"Hey Ho" by Clare Teal is released on 16th May and is available for pre-order now. There is pretty much something for everybody on this CD - even if you think that you "don't like jazz...", so why not give it a try...?
To find out more about Clare Teal and her music - and to see her tour dates, visit the official website at:
http://www.clareteal.co.uk/
CD Pre-Order: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hey-Ho-Clare-Teal/dp/B004I01KSO
You can hear a short interview with Clare talking about the new CD by clicking on the sound icon below:
